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Petro-masculinity

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Petro-masculinity is an analytical label to describe a variety of masculinity associated with the petroculture and fossil fuel industry, including both the workers in the industry and promoters of the industry in the large social and civic space. Though petro-masculinities have existed as part of different fossil fuel industries, the analysis of them became important in the late 2010s as the connection of masculinity cultures with climate denial.[1]

The widespread use of the term in scholarship and public discourse started with Cara Daggett's in her 2018 paper "Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire" argues that petromasculinity connects male identity with various issues of power such as colonialism and extractivism.[1][2]

Petromasculinity tends to emphasize several different types of cultural performances of masculinity, including:

  • The importance of the "bread winner" role of men in families[3]
  • Images of muscular male bodies.
  • Symbols of economic power of men and nostalgia for fossil fuel technologies, such as cars that consume lots of fossil fuels as opposed to greener alternatives.[4][5] Often these fossil fuel vehicles are depicted as loud and belching large amounts of black smoke.[6]
  • War, military action[4][7] and other violence[8]
  • Environmental protection as being "feminine" behaviors[9][10]
  • Denial of the severity of climate change.[4][3][1] or other kinds of environmental destruction.[9]

Together, these narratives have become aligned with far-right and authoritarian politics in much of Europe and North America,[4][3] and is advanced by influencers in masculinity culture, such as Manosphere influencers Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson.[11] Legal researcher, Monica Iyer argued that the use of these kinds of narratives in public discourse has changed the legal possibility space around climate action.[7]

Some scholars have begun evaluating how femininity has been used for similar rhetorical effect in the communications of the fossil fuel industry.[12][10]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 Daggett, Cara (2018). "Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire". Millennium. 47 (1): 25–44. doi:10.1177/0305829818775817. ISSN 0305-8298.
  2. ↑ "Petro-Masculinity: An Interview With Cara Daggett". Women's Environment and Development Organization. 14 May 2025. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
  3. 1 2 3 Manhire, Ryan (2024). "Love Thy Enemy?: Understanding and Responding to the Self-Destructive Necro-Politics of Petro-Masculine Climate Refusal". Sukupuolentutkimus-Genusforskning. 37 (4): 27–43. ISSN 2342-0634.  This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Caimotto, M. Cristina (2024). "Discourses of Cycling Advocacy and Power amidst Wars, Petro-Masculinity and Climate Inaction". In Bortoluzzi, Maria; Zurru, Elisabetta (eds.). Ecological Communication and Ecoliteracy: Discourses of Awareness and Action for the Lifescape. Bloomsbury Advances in Ecolinguistics. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 67–87. ISBN 978-1-350-33583-7.
  5. ↑ Daggett, Cara (1 May 2022). "Petro-Masculinity and the Politics of Climate Refusal". The Autonomy Institute. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
  6. ↑ Horta, Arnau (1 December 2020). "El soroll acceleracionista de la petromasculinitat" [The accelerationist noise of petro-masculinity] (in Catalan). Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona. Retrieved 12 March 2026.
  7. 1 2 Iyer, Monica (30 January 2026). Law and Petro-Masculinity (PDF). doi:10.2139/ssrn.6156567.
  8. ↑ Turcotte, Heather M. (2011). "Contextualizing Petro-Sexual Politics". Alternatives: Global, Local, Political. 36 (3): 200–220. doi:10.1177/0304375411418597. ISSN 2163-3150 – via The Free Library.
  9. 1 2 Mitchell, Michael C. (28 July 2025). "How Hypermasculinity Fuels Environmental Destruction". Better Worlds. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
  10. 1 2 Wilson, Sheena (2014). "Gendering Oil: Tracing Western Petrosexual Relations" (PDF). In Barrett, Ross; Worden, Daniel (eds.). Oil Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 244–263. ISBN 9780816689743. JSTOR 10.5749/j.ctt1287nvk.18 – via Sheenawilson.ca.
  11. ↑ "Carbon Bros, Ep 1: The Testosterone Pipeline". Drilled (audio with transcript). 26 July 2025. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
  12. ↑ Mavelli, Luca (2025). "Motherly Oil Industry: Governing the Desire for Climate Action through Petro-Feminine Spatial Imaginaries". Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. doi:10.1177/02637758251380102. ISSN 0263-7758.  This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
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